Conformity caught here, nobody catches it,
Lawns groomed in prose, with hardly a stutter.
Lloyd hits the ball, and Lorraine fetches it.
Mom hangs the laundry, Fred, Jr., watches it,
Shirts in the clichéd air, all aflutter.
Conformity caught here, nobody catches it.
A dog drops a bone, another dog snatches it.
I dreamed of this life once, Now I shudder
As Lloyd hits the ball and Lorraine fetches it.
A doldrum of leaky roofs, a roofer who patches it,
Lloyd prowls the streets, still clutching his putter.
Conformity caught here, nobody catches it.
The tediumed rake, the retiree who matches it,
The fall air gone dead with the pure drone of motors
While Lloyd hits the ball, and Lorraine just fetches it.
The door is ajar, then somebody latches it.
Through the hissing of barbecues poets mutter
Of conformity caught here, where nobody catches it.
Lloyd hits the ball. And damned Lorraine fetches it.
 
From Against Romance by Michael Blumenthal, published by Viking Penguin, Inc. Copyright © 1987 by Michael Blumenthal. Used by permission of the author.

Poems by This Author

Be Kind by Michael Blumenthal
Not merely because Henry James said
Fish Fucking by Michael Blumenthal
Jew by Michael Blumenthal
The melancholy of Chopin and cruel breathing
Manners by Michael Blumenthal
Just because a man pulls out your chair for you
Night Baseball by Michael Blumenthal
At night, when I go out to the field
Stones by Michael Blumenthal
We live in dread of something
The Difference between a Child and a Poem by Michael Blumenthal
If you are terrified of your own death
The Nurse by Michael Blumenthal
Now come the purple garments, now the white
United Jewish Appeal by Michael Blumenthal
My grandmother was eighty-nine and blind


Further Reading

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